The Holocaust- Nazis first acted upon their racist beliefs when they stripped Jews of basic rights. Eventually Nazi and German rule created concentration camps and attempted to kill all European Jews and others who they felt were inferior.
- On November 7th, 1938, a young Jewish refugee named Herschel Grynszpan shot and killed a German diplomat in Paris. Herschel's father and 10,000 other Jews had been sent to concentration camps in Poland. For this act Herschel wanted revenge and he got it. Because of this Hitler ordered troops to stage attacks against the Jews. On Kristallnacht, the same day the German was shot, roaming bands of Nazis stormed and destroyed Jewish property and terrorized Jewish families.
- By 1943, the Nazis had started their plans to exterminate the Jews. The system of ghettos was abandoned with herding men, women, and children onto cattle cars for transport to death camps.
- Fierce fighting in both Europe and the Pacific led to defeat of the Axis powers.